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Are Perfectionist Tendencies Making You Depressed?


Perfectionism and Depression

If your thoughts are, “I have to do it right,” “I have to do it all,” “I cannot fail,” “I have to keep up with others,” “Is this good enough?” or “I need to be in control,” then you are letting perfectionism dictate your life. As a perfectionist, you hold yourself to high ideals or expectations due to your irrational thoughts. These irrational thought patterns include all-or-none thinking and “should” and “must” statements. If you don’t meet your perfectionist standards, you start to feel worthless, which then fuels more depressive thinking. Perfectionists often seek pleasure by focusing on the results of their activities rather than enjoying the process. This then prevents them from savoring the simple pleasures of everyday life. In fact, perfectionism increases one’s vulnerability to depression, possibly because of a lack of self-compassion (Ferrari et al., 2018). In other words, perfectionist individuals are more likely to judge themselves harshly and criticize themselves for mistakes because they are concerned about being negatively evaluated by others. This then engenders feelings of shame, which in turn makes these individuals more vulnerable to depression. With depression setting in, one experiences loss of pleasure (anhedonia), which then creates a double whammy for a perfectionist as they are already not experiencing much joy to begin with.

According to Paul Gilbert, author of Overcoming Depression, perfectionism sometimes stems from irrational competitiveness that one has to keep up with or get ahead of others (Gilbert, 2001). The mindset in competitive perfectionism is, “If they can do this, so should I,” or “If they can do this, then I can do this better.” As evident, these perfectionists let others around them set their standards and are prone to feeling worthless when they don’t meet them. Other causes of perfectionistic tendencies include fear of failure or of being rejected. Pressure to succeed and unrealistic expectations of seeking approval from others can also drive perfectionism.

Below are some proven ways to overcome perfectionism:

Cognitive Techniques to Overcome Perfectionism

Some questions and techniques geared toward changing your thought process to squelch perfectionism out of your daily routine are as follows (Burns, 1999; Gilbert, 2001):
  • Are my expectations based on my values, or are they driven by competitiveness? 
  • Am I trying to avoid being seen as inferior, or do I want to be seen as superior? 
  • Are these my own standards or ones that others expect of me? 
  • Am I missing out on the pleasures of doing things by focusing too much on success? 
  • Am I overlooking and not praising myself enough for the small successes? 
  • If I can’t do it all, is there a small part I can do? 
  • What would I tell my best friend if they had perfectionist tendencies? 
  • Is my false sense of pride driving my perfectionism? 
  • Replace your “I should” or “I must” statements with “I prefer” statements. “I should finish this task by today” becomes “I prefer to finish this task by today.” 
  • Learn to recognize that perfectionism is an illusion. No human being is perfect, and nothing done by humans is perfect. 
  • Compare the advantages and disadvantages of being a perfectionist. If your goal is to walk at least two miles a day for it to be counted as meaningful, then the advantage of holding on to this belief is that you may get enough exercise. The disadvantages may include “freezing” and not doing anything as this may be too big a goal for you, being afraid of feeling ashamed if you are not able to walk for two miles, not being able to enjoy the walk itself because you are only focusing on the distance, and comparing yourself with others who are walking greater distances, which makes you feel worthless. By drawing out the advantages and disadvantages of your perfectionistic assumptions, you can arrive at a more rational and balanced approach to setting your standards. 
  • Dare to be average, as David Burns, author of Feeling Good, puts it. Do a task with lower expectations, and you will most likely still be satisfied and experience pleasure with it (Burns, 1999). 

Self-Compassion Journal

Self-compassion is another proven antidote for perfectionism (Neff, 2011). Around the evening, write in your self-compassion journal any event that made you judge yourself critically, or you felt ashamed, or blamed yourself, or anything you felt terrible about. Next, for each event, use the three components of the compassionate frame of mind – self-kindness, a sense of common humanity, and mindfulness – to process the event in a self-compassionate way.

Let’s consider the following situation to illustrate this technique. You couldn’t meet a deadline at work despite your best efforts. Even though your supervisor extended the deadline, you can’t stop feeling bad about the incident and blame yourself for your unsatisfactory performance because you have always held yourself to high standards. Using self-kindness, you use gentle, supportive, and understanding words to accept your shortcomings rather than harshly blaming yourself. For example, “I know I messed up, but it isn’t the end of the world. I understand how frustrating it is to miss the deadline and how it makes me feel. I know I tried very hard to accomplish my task, and blaming myself for not performing satisfactorily will only get my spirits down.” Using a sense of common humanity, you recognize that all humans fail and make mistakes, and no one is perfect. For example, “I know of other people who have not met deadlines at work, and they don’t feel sorry about themselves,” or “Perfectionism is an illusion. No human being is perfect, and nothing done by humans is perfect.” Using mindfulness, you try to focus on the feelings and emotions related to the event without any judgments and without getting caught up in an exaggerated storyline about the negative aspects of the event.

To learn more about evidence-based self-management techniques that are proven to work for depression, check out Dr. Duggal's Author Page.

HARPREET S. DUGGAL, MD, FAPA

REFERENCES
Burns, D. D. (1999). Feeling good: The new mood therapy. New York, NY: Avon Books.

Gilbert, P. (2001). Overcoming depression: A step-by-step approach to gaining control over depression (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc.

Ferrari, M., Yap, K., Scott, N., Einstein, D. A., & Ciarrochi, J. (2018). Self-compassion moderates the perfectionism and depression link in both adolescence and adulthood. PLoS One, 13(2):e0192022. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0192022

Neff, K. (2011). Self-compassion. New York, NY: William Morrow.









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Comments

  1. VladApril 10, 2022 at 8:59 AM

    Hey, nice share! We all have some dose of perfectionism to deal with. But one must make mistakes in order to progress. Keep it up! 😎

    ReplyDelete

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